Treatments of Lymphoma

1> Chemo Radiotherapy – Generally, in the treatment of lymphoma, chemotherapy and radiotherapy are used together as a combination therapy. Chemotherapy involves intravenous use of cytotoxic drugs to kill cancer cell while radiotherapy uses high energy X rays to kill the cancer cells and reduce the tumor size. Radiotherapy is more locally oriented. It mainly focuses on the known sites of the tumor either site of origin or metastasis. Chemotherapy is the systemic treatment as the drug given intravenously reaches every nook and corner of the body and kills the cancer cells wherever they are present. Commonly used drugs in combination for chemotherapy are doxorubicin, Adriamycin, vincristine and vinblatin.

2> Bone Marrow Transplant – This procedure uses high dose chemotherapy to kill all the bone marrow in the patient’s body. Then a part of bone marrow either preserved from patient’s body before the start of chemotherapy or from close relative is implanted into the patients body which grow into new healthy bone marrow.

3> Biological Therapy – It is also called Biological Response Modifier Therapy (BRMT). It uses enzymatic substances and chemicals of body cells to trigger defense system against cancer cells.

A> Immunotherapy

1> Cytokines are the chemicals produced by the body to fight against intruders. When injected into the body, these cytokines trigger the immune system to mount an attack against cancer cells and kill them. The cytokines approved for clinical use are interleukin and interferon.

2> Monoclonal antibodies are the antibodies directed against one type of cell. This antibody is made in the laboratory and injected into the patient’s body. As it is directed against the antigens i.e. the protein coat over the cancer cells, it specifically kills cancer cells only. In a further modification of this therapy, powerful anticancer drugs are coupled with the antibodies which are released when antibody gets attached to the cancer cell antigen. This has the advantage that the cytotoxic drug is released just at the cellular level where it is needed thus avoiding many adverse effects of systemic administration of these drugs. Rituxan is the monoclonal antibody available commercially for the treatment of lymphoma. Bexxar is a similar drug which binds to the antigen present on both cancerous and healthy white blood cells. Since immature developing white blood cells do not have this antigen, they escape from the effect of this drug from which new healthy white blood cells grow.

3> Tumor Vaccine Therapy uses body’s own cells modified to trigger the defensive response by the body against tumor cells. Hence when the body detects the abnormal tumor cells it immediately kills them preventing its further progression.

B> Angiogenesis Inhibitors

To comply with the high growth rate of cancer cells, cancer tissue grows many new blood vessels. This phenomenon is called neoangiogenesis. Angiogenesis inhibitors are the drugs which inhibit this process of new blood vessel formation and inhibit the growth of cancer cells.

C> Gene Therapy

Pieces of health DNA are inserted into the cancer cells either to replace the defective oncogenes or to modify it to make the cell self destructive.

Check my next article on “Treatment Therapies Specific to Cutaneous T-cell Lymphoma“.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article is for the general public awareness only. The patient is advised to take proper medical opinion before undergoing any treatment mentioned herein. The author and publisher are not responsible for any consequences thereof.